What kind of music did you grow
up with ?
I grew up with different kinds of
music.. When I
was a "Lil" girl my
mother always listend to Country
music, Rock and Roll but also A
lot of Hawaiin music. Later her
musical changed. She started
listening to a lot of rhythm and
blues and some soul music I think
as a child you just listen to
what your parents plays you know? But I
have to say I always liked what I
had to listen too! It
influencend my musical taste for
sure... Was
your family musically inclined?
Yes indeed there where! My
grandfather was a bit of a famous
guitarplayer here in Holland in
the late 50s till the 80s. He was a
brilliant schooled jazzguitarist,
who played in all the fancy
Theatres jazzclubs and other
venues. He also
aranged a lot of music for very
know BEAT bands as the Golden
earing(RADAR LOVE FAME) and indo
rock female star Anneke
Gronloh. When he
became older he started to give
guitarlessons. And when
i was 17 I took some lessons too... His wife
(my grandmother) played the
violin in all kind of big
orcherstras. My mother
played steelguitar in a hawaian
band. Her dad taught her to play
it. My sister
plays piano. And we
start singing harmony the moment
we could talk!
How
did you come to discover “roots
music”?
Well, as I said
I always liked the music my
mother listening to a whole lot when I
became older I became more
interested and curious about the
roots of this music and soon
discovered it and decided to dig
a litte deeper.
When
did you start to sing and when
did you consider joining a band?
I started sing on a very young
age.. Me and my
sister must have been 6 or 7
years old when joinend a harmony-choir We did
this for years! And we
even recorded an album with Dutch
folk songs on it ! Hahahaha at the
age of 19 we considered the
option to form a band. So we
asked another friend (Marga) to
join us. We met the other
bandmembers at Local R.a.B clubs. Ed
the drummer is married to my
sister. We were
influencend by 50s harmony vocals
girl bands.
Were
you in other band before the
Bugaloos?
No.. The
Bugaloos was my first band...
Maybe
all of our readers don’t
know The Bugaloos, can you tell
us more about this band?
The bugaloos was a 6 piece band bass-drums-guitar
line up And 3
Girls singing. We did
all kinds of styles RAB, jazz,
western swing and some Les Paul
& Mary Ford stuff. A lot of
Miller sister, Davis sisters,
Nita rita and Ruby, Everly
brothers, Louvin brothers just to
name a few...
The
next band you’ve played with
was “Jess’n’Jill
And The Sinners”. A word
about that. Did you release
anything?
Aahh.. Jess and
jill and the sinners. That was
Peter and Tjarco from the
Tinstars and Jan from the
Chesstnuts(and later the
barnstompers). And Marga
from the Bugaloos, she was
replaced by Diane. It was
mostly straight r.a.b Harmony
stuff but it was so much fun to
do. We did
some great gigs but Tjarco and
Peter were to busy with the
Tinstars at the time so the
band just faded away you might
say. It was in
France I met Don cavalli he was
on the same bill.
You
also made a short stint with The
Ranchgirls & The Ragtime
Wranglers…
Yep! Jelle the
Ranchgirl guitarist was in The
Bugaloos. They
asked me to join them and I did
that for a year or so It was
great fun! Miss mary
ann is a dear friend of me.
In
those bands you were singing in
harmony or duets, how and when
did you think about going as a
solo act?
Well, I did some recordings with
Tjarco and some members of The
Barnstompers which
came out on goofin records (Jelle
ragtime wrangler arranged that
for me) and we
wanted to do something with this
band so we
practised in the barnstompers
studio for a while but once
again both bands were busy at the
time. One day
someone wanted to book me for
some shows so I used the Tinstars
as backing band! Hahaha it
worked out pretty well and they
tried to get rid of me after that
but as we all know now they
didn't succeed...
On
the new album, that should be out
real soon, Don Cavalli, Robert
Williams/Big Sandy and John Lewis
wrote songs for you. Tell us more
about this collaboration.
Fabrice is a very good friend of
me, he played with The Tinstars
several times. He wrote a whole
lot of songs for me. Same with
Robert, he wrote me 2 songs a
long time ago. We recorded them
for Rarity but the Tinstar boys
didnt Want to
go back to the studio to finish
them so the deal went sour. Big Sandy
recorded them himself but a bit
different. Then
Empire stepped in so we started
the whole recording process again. Both
songs are on this new c.d "Love
That Man" and "Confusin
love" ( the original demo is
fantastic!).
I know John Lewis at least 20
years. The Bugaloos played with
the Rimshots A WHOLE LOT! John also
wrote the Liner notes he is a
very dear friend.
Recently,
Carl Sonny Leyland wrote a couple
of songs for you too...
Yes he did! 2
fantastic songs we are going to
work on soon for an upcoming
project. I am real
proud he did, I like carl a whole
lot! I like his voice very much. On the
demo he plays guitar(lead and
rhythm) and every Leyland's fan
would love to have/hear them!!
Do
you write songs too?
Nope! I didnt
even tried it..! hahaha
Wasn’t
that too hard to bring the
Tinstars to the studio, as they’re
not really known to be studio
freaks?
Are you kidding me?? You know
the TINSTARS right?? I had to
beg... Blood
sweat and tears it cost me!
serious!
But it was worth it. Hahaha I am very
pleased with the end result and
it seems they liked it as there
are plans to go back in January
to record the new Tinstar album.
A
word about the guest players on
the cd...
Let's see... Arnold
from the Bluegrass Boogiemen is
on mandolin. A friend
of us Ronald Visser plays
piano on some tracks. Fiddle is
played by a fellow named Joost
Van Es (plays with the Hillbilly
Boogiemen sometimes) The
harmonica is played by our
steelguitarist (who plays a lot
of instruments pretty good) and the
harmony singer is Tinstar Rick. And I sang
some harmony with my sister and
myself!!
What
kind of stuff are you listenin’
right now? What is the last
record you bought?
I mostly listen to Kay starr at
the moment. Various
girl stuff. And the
Carl Sonny Leyland songs of
course! Oh! and
the Starday recordings of Roger
miller on Bear Family.
A
last word…
I'm very pleased that i could do
this interview! And
I am exited about my new c.d. And there
are some good shows coming up. So things
looks good for me.
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